i_speak_softly | Sixty-Second Theory [Action]

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Sixty-Second Theory [Action]

[Today, Don can intermittently be found standing outside House 55, eating a large but careful amount of the household's remaining food, and watching a long line of Kin'corans walk - or be forcibly herded - into the barracks to be teleported to wherever they're going.]

[In between these breaks, he will be industriously stripping the plaster from the walls of one of the house's long-vacant bedrooms, demolishing it right down to the studs. He has the windows open to help ventilate the inevitable dust, and the sound of his efforts can be plainly heard in the surrounding area.]

[Ask what he's doing in there? Complain about the noise? Or just join him to observe the sad parade of refugees?]

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[The noise is the loudest in the house itself. With the refugees being herded out of the enclosure, Leo's returned to his normal routine. More or less.]

What happened to taking it easy, Don? [He's leaning on the door frame of the room, looking around at the stripping of the walls. His tone slightly amused. And Don was telling him to take it easy?]

[Crisis situation is over, or nearly so. No more time for laying around.]

[Don tosses Leo a second pick-ax. He helped with your butchering; you're going to put in some time on his construction project.]

[Yes, but they still don't know when supplies will start arriving again.

He easily catches the pick-ax before he pushes off the door frame and walks further into the room.]

So, what are you turning this room into?

For the cold thing.

[He sizes up a still-intact section of wall, then starts going at it with his own ax.]

[Leo watches Don for a moment to get the idea of what to do. He finds a spot to start hacking away too.

Cold thing? Give him a minute as he tries to figure out what Don meant.]

[Don thinks that was perfectly clear, so he assumes Leo understood. If you want further explanation, you'll have to ask.]

Alright, what cold thing?

[He looks over at Don. You're not turning it into a walk in cooler, are you?

[Blink, because that was a delayed reaction and Don's train of thought has moved on to other stations already.]

You know. The thing we do, in the cold.

[Robert has already been neurotic enough about the relative inability to clean Luceti in its current state, so Don destroying the room is making it worse, what with throwing all of the dust around.

He doesn't immediately go inside; the refugee Kin'corans are a distraction, and he wanted to make certain that Anatoly was alright first. But when he does, the first thing he gravitates towards is the room. He doesn't entirely want to - even the thought of that much dust is disturbing right now - but he needs to know what Don is doing.]

...

Can you... explain what the point of this is...?

[Maybe. Don puts his pick-ax down momentarily, so he can locate some sketched blueprints and give them to Robert. The drawing is clearly of this room, though somewhat modified. The equations in the margins seem to primarily concern R-factors.]

[Hmm. The blueprints are a sufficient enough distraction that - even with the thin film of dust on their surface - Robert is immediately curious. He studies the plans intently, pausing only to look up at the actual room itself.

It looks much different with everything taken out of it... somehow almost sad, like the bare exoskeleton of a room. But in the same sense, it also has an anticipatory feeling about it - it's going to become something else.]

... Ah, I see...

A... a sort of insulated chamber...? [Give him a moment to come up with a rationale as to why Don would want to make that.]

[With a simple nod - Robert will figure this out in a minute - Don hefts the ax again and resumes hacking at the wall.]

Oh right, that.

[Something to help with the cold, got it. He's silent for a bit as he works, before he speaks up again.]

Perhaps it's time to take a break. [It's obvious to him that Don's been at this for a while. He'll stop his own work to emphasize.] I wanted to talk to you about something anyway.

[Don recognizes a rephrasing of "Whatever, Donnie" when he hears it, but as long as Leo is working constructively, it's good enough.]

[When Leo stops working, Don does too. He's pretty sure he hasn't been at this for 24 hours or more, but he trusts his brother's sense of time more than his own.]

[What did you want to talk about, oni-san?]

[As expected, the Turtle-savvy biologist gets it in a moment.]

... An environmental chamber... for warmth?

[On one hand, part of Robert is selfishly pleased. Assuming it works properly, this means Don and Leo can at least have periods - or a place - where they can be... themselves. Or, well. This part of themselves, anyway.

On the other hand, he's a little worried. Would long-term exposure to this make them ill?]

Ah... do you think it is a safe idea...? [He knows that pet turtles were apparently kept at these temperatures consistently (not that anybody has pet turtles in Terra except for eccentric collectors) in order to avoid brumation, but it doesn't sit right with him.]

[Don nods to these things. The potential dangers are beyond his ability to explain right now, even if he was willing to admit they exist.]

[Well, if Don's not worried about it, then Robert probably shouldn't be either. (Even though he will be.)]

Then... how might I be able to help you?

... At the least there... should be a way to clean this... sometime. [He is not too thrilled about how inconsistently he's been able to clean. Maybe if the power is at all more consistent soon, it'll be less of a problem.]

[Don will clean it when he's done, he swears.]

[To redirect Robert from that line of thinking, Don sticks a pencil in his hand. Why don't you check the math on these schematics?]

[Okay, okay, fine, don't let him obsessively scour for dust or anything.

It's still odd to use a pencil instead of a keyboard. Robert carefully props the schematics up against a section of the wall so that he can write, and then begins analyzing the math thoroughly. Are there any glaring errors?]

[The math is correct, but Don has probably left out something he should have considered. Will Robert find what's missing?]

[He leans his ax against the wall. Oh Leo knows he's been going on for some time. It's hard to miss the noise of walls being chopped down.]

What do you think of going on a camping trip? [He turns to look at Don as he asks.] This time taking Robert along with us. [Leo's sure it'll take some convincing to get the human to come.]

[Beast is just returning from the farmland, exhausted and still not well fed, but not wanting to go back to his house just yet in case it will be trashed. Instead he finds himself wandering over to the other end of the village, nearly walking into the line of Kin'corans... he doesn't even have the energy to feel relieved, that's how exhausted he is right now.

But his alertness is triggered by the smashing and ripping sounds he is hearing from House 55. Knowing who lives there, he stumbles over and stares, dazed, at the turtle at work.]

D... Don?

[At the first question, Don looks interested, but at the second his expression changes to something more like Are you out of your mind.]

[Don pauses and leans out the window to see who's calling him. Hey, it's Beast.]

Hi. How are you?

[... Hmm... ...

... Aha.]

You forgot to account for heat diffusion through the window panes.

[Scribble, scribble, scribble. Robert will just helpfully model that for you, Don.]

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